Professor Seeram Ramakrishna
DATE AND TIME
2 July 2024, Tuesday | 12.00pm – 1.00pm
Human progress without engineered products and services is unimaginable. However, the progress that builds on a linear economy is causing resources depletion, pollution, adverse human health effects, and ecological degradation. Achieving human progress via a circular economy (CE) that emulates the circularity of nature, an auto-balancing feature of our ecosphere, is the way forward. Circularity of matter is a result of interrelated Earth systems and the energy input from the Sun. The human engineered CE can foster a healthy living ecology via escalating resource efficiency and circularity, also the reduction of negative socio-environmental externalities. Wherein products and processes are purposely designed and/or selected with lower ecological footprint and higher circularity while satisfying the functional as well as cost requirements (https://lnkd.in/gJN3xBQ3). In other words, CE decarbonizes economies and companies while transitioning towards zero-waste and zero-carbon (https://lnkd.in/gp2duhCR).
This talk focuses on circular economy a) principles, b) skills, and c) business opportunities.
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Professor Seeram Ramakrishna, FREng, Everest Chair is a world-renowned scholar of cross-field at the National University of Singapore. He has been named among the World’s Most Influential Minds (Thomson Reuters) and Clarivate Highly Cited Researchers since 2014.
He is a leading voice for the materials circular economy solutions to decarbonize economies. He is the Chief Editor of the Springer NATURE Journal Materials Circular Economy; Associate Chief Editor of Elsevier Journal Circular Economy; Senior Editor of Biofuel Research Journal, and Advisory Board member of NPJ journal Urban Sustainability. He is a POC for the Ministry of Sustainability and Environment (MSE) Singapore on the circular economy competency and skillsets. He is a member of EPR and BCRS committees of National Environment Agency NEA. He is a member of ISO technical committee on Circular Economy. He is a member of the Environment & Resources Standards Committees of Singapore Manufacturing Federation (SMF), Singapore Chemical Industry Council (SCIC) and Standards Development Organization (SDO). He moderates the Charles Rudd Distinguished Global Lecture series hosted by the Institution of Engineers Singapore (IES). He is a chartered engineer (Sustainability), IES Singapore. He advises the World Bank. He is an evaluation panel member for the $3 million Prize by the Alliance to End Plastic Waste; CapitaLand Sustainability X Challenge; Enterprise Singapore Startup SG Tech and Global Innovation programs; and MIT-TR35 Asia Pacific innovators.
He co-authored five books in the emerging domain namely Handbook of Circular Economy; Circularity Assessment; Sustainability for Beginners; Combating Climate Change: A helpful Guide on Personal Carbon Foot printing; and Circular Economy. He also co-authored UNESCO EGU2030 Book on ‘Knowledge-driven Actions: Transforming Higher Education for Global Sustainability’. His publications to date received an H-index of 194 and 185,326 citations (Google Scholar). He advises technology companies such as TRIA, CeEntek, InfraPrime, Volt14, Sustain360, Low Carbon Energies, OpenRead, Siccatus, Thiospark, Plasma-gear, and Hydgen.
He received a PhD from the University of Cambridge, UK, and TGMP from Harvard University, USA. He also received advanced research experiences at MIT and Johns Hopkins University, USA and KIT, Japan.
His senior academic leadership includes NUS Vice-President (Research Strategy); Dean of NUS Faculty of Engineering; Director of NUS Enterprise; Director of NUS Industry and Technology Relations Office (INTRO); Director of NUS International Relations Office (IRO); Chairman of Solar Energy Institute of Singapore (SERIS); Director of NUS Bioengineering Initiative; and Director of NUS Nanoscience & Nanotechnology Initiative (NUSNNI).
He is an elected Fellow | Academician of Chinese Academy of Engineering, China; National Academy of Engineering, India; Royal Academy of Engineering (FREng), UK; Singapore Academy of Engineering, Singapore; ASEAN Academy of Engineering and Technology; and AAAS, USA. He is also an elected Fellow of professional societies such as ASM International, ASME, AIMBE, USA; IMechE and IoM3, UK; ISTE, India; and IUBSE (FBSE).